Dating : I Don’t Know How Many People I’ve Slept with and That’s Okay

The data of our dating lives is nobody’s business.

Sex is a natural part of being a human, and it’s not a big deal. As soon as we start believing that, we can stop judging people for the amount of it they’re having (or not having).

Whenever the question comes up of “What’s your number?”, I never feel compelled to answer. If I do answer, it’ll be something to the effect of “Does it matter?” and that usually shuts down further inquiries.

It’s nobody’s business how many people you’ve slept with.

Just as it’s nobody’s business how much you weigh, or how tall you are, or how old you are, or what your salary is.

You are not a number. Numbers do not define you.

I don’t keep track of my number, because it’s no longer important to me. It doesn’t mean anything. I am not the number of people that I’ve slept with, just as I’m not my weight or height or my left shoe.

That number, if I kept a tally and chose to share it, wouldn’t be used for anything good. It would only be used to judge me or shame me. It would be an excuse for someone to decide what kind of person I am, or to evaluate my worth based on this arbitrary number.

That’s why your number, or the age you were when you started having sex, and any other sexual data, is nobody’s business but your own. And even then — who cares? Why does it matter?

Admittedly, I didn’t always have this cavalier outlook. In fact, I thought the opposite for many years. I held onto my virginity with a vise grip, and I exhibited a holier-than-thou attitude when it came to hearing about other people’s exploits.

It was a long road of personal discovery that led me to this path of thought, where I live my life today. The concept of not keeping track of my number was first presented to me by my best friend. When she told me she didn’t know how many people she’d slept with and she never intended to keep track — I judged her. Not harshly, because she’s my friend, but I did instantaneously pass a judgment on her. My holier-than-thou was showing.

It took me a few years of experimenting on my own before I started to see things her way.

After eventually deciding to lose my virginity and the adventures that followed, I found myself counting and keeping a tally. As the number increased, I felt more and more ashamed.

But then I stopped to consider, what do I actually have to feel ashamed of? People have sex all the time, and it a natural part of life.

Upon closer introspection, part of my guilt stemmed from my Christian upbringing. Even though I no longer fully identified with Christianity, it was still ingrained in my psyche to wait for marriage before having sex. The other part came from the self-conscious little voice in the back of my head telling me that no matter how many people I slept with, I’d still never find love and never be good enough.

Ouch.

My number had transformed into a weapon of harmful inner dialogue and judgmental self-ridicule— so I made the conscious decision to stop counting.

I don’t need another number to use to make myself feel bad. My self-worth is not tied to any number or statistic. I am not my sex life — it is only a part of me. There is so much more to me, and to everyone, that comprises the tapestries of our lives and makes us who we are.

Don’t feel bad for having sex. Don’t feel bad for enjoying it and wanting more of it. And don’t feel bad for not keeping count.

It’s your body, and you get to make the decisions. Don’t let the actions or judgments of others decide what’s best for you.